


Desire is Colored Red

by Chromi



Category: One Piece
Genre: Biting, Blood, Body Worship, Drinking, Drunkenness, Dry Humping, Hand Jobs, Intercrural Sex, Lust, M/M, Pining, Public Hand Jobs, Sexual Tension, pirates being pirates, thigh-fucking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-07-31 08:24:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20112085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromi/pseuds/Chromi
Summary: Marco is not looking forward to Shanks' visit. Not in the slightest. He knows what will happen, he knows Shanks will belittle him and his love for his family by asking him to join the Red-Haired pirates again, and Marco would really. Rather. Not.But maybe, just maybe, Shanks doesn't ask because of reasons like that. Perhaps there's something more to it. Something more basic. Carnal.





	1. Chapter 1

Nothing much surprised Marco nowadays. Not really. He had seen it all, as far as he was concerned, had seen and taken part in so many fights, countless raids, and had beaten back threat after threat after ridiculous threat. There was little left that his crew could do to elicit much of a reaction, either.

He had taken it in his stride when he had found Sonya, head of the nurses, asleep at his desk in the medical office, her face buried in his shirt that he’d left there as she cuddled it to herself. He’d left her smiling into the purple fabric, pulling a blanket from a cupboard and tucking it around her shoulders, and never mentioned it to anyone.

He hadn’t batted an eyelid when he’d accidentally walked in on several of his division wrapped around each other, stark naked, on the floor of one of the less frequented store rooms. All he’d wanted was an apple, and instead he’d found an orgy. He’d apologised and ducked out, chuckling to himself at their looks of abject horror at being discovered by their commander, of all people.

No, there wasn’t really very much left in the world that could surprise or shock Marco, not anymore. People were far more predictable than they thought they were, their wants, intentions, and habits easy to pick up on with a little keen observation. Even Ace, their newest commander, wasn’t as unfathomable as he clearly thought he was, not counting his one particular secret. In fact, Ace’s Big Reveal had been the first thing in years to genuinely surprise Marco, and he had admitted as such.

So really, he could also admit to being stunned in this very moment, looking up at his father beside him with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, much like how the rest of the commanders present for the meeting were staring at him. Whitebeard chortled at their unabashed shock and looked down at Marco.

“Well, what are your thoughts, Marco?”

His thoughts? _His _thoughts? Would his opinion hold any weight in this matter? It sounded very much like Pops had already decided - nay, gone ahead and already invited, in fact - Shanks and his crew to come and visit. _Visit_. Like they weren’t two of the four most powerful crews sailing the seas. Like they were just two families getting together for a weekend barbecue that wouldn’t potentially disrupt the power balance of the world.

Marco sighed long, low, letting his shoulders drop with the motion. His father was too much, sometimes.

“You know how I feel about Red-Hair,” he said simply, noting the twinkle in Pops’ eye.

Long ago, when Shanks had first met Marco, Whitebeard had been protective, not seeing the funny side of the teenager under Roger’s command taking such a shine to his first mate. He had stepped in when Shanks had declined to give up trying to persuade Marco to leave his crew and join them, roaring to Roger to keep his boys in line. Roger had only laughed at him, inciting a fierce fight between the two.

But as time had moved on, as they all got older, wiser, and stronger, Pops had began to find Shanks’ persistence amusing, rumbling a laugh whenever Shanks spotted the blond and yelled his excitement to see him again. Marco, unfortunately, could not say that he shared Pops’ sentiment, finding the other Yonko to be immature and arrogant in his relentless pursuit.

“I do know,” Pops smiled, “which is why I am asking for your thoughts.”

“Then you know that I think he shouldn’t come on board,” Marco replied, frowning at Whitebeard. “Why do you want to see him, anyway? What is this in aid of?”

“I received word from the Red Force’s navigator that they have recently departed from Wano Country. He let slip that they have procured some excellent sake.”

Ah, there it was. Marco felt no surprise at this, knowing full well that Whitebeard was easily led by his habit of over-indulging in good alcohol. Shanks was a seriously bad influence in that regard - yet another reason to keep him far, far away from them.

“And why are you in contact with their navigator?” Marco asked, looking at his father sternly, ignoring how Thatch opposite him sighed. It should, theoretically, be none of his business who Whitebeard was in contact with in his private time, assuming that it had nothing to do with anything that could involve either of their crews, but Marco had a sneaking suspicion that Whitebeard’s chosen contact was made on less than innocent grounds.

“Why?” Pops looked confused, surprised that Marco didn’t understand. “They are not our enemies, son. They are our rivals, and I enjoy their company. And I also enjoy being informed of when they happen upon liquor of the likes I am unable to find elsewhere in the world.”

OK, so that surprised him a little, that hidden nugget of revelation between the lines. Pops obviously did this often, and Marco had been none the wiser. He was slipping, clearly.

And the surprises just kept on coming, going so long without having any only to be slapped with three in one sitting as Ace sat up a little straighter, looking from Pops to Marco next to him.

“Shanks is my friend,” Ace said casually, catching the blatant astonishment on Marco’s face at this news and grinning, “it’ll be good to see him again. I vote we have them stay a few days.”

“We’re not—” that had well and truly thrown Marco off track, “this isn’t a vote, Ace. And _how_?”

“He saved Luffy when he was a kid.”

Ah. Marco needed no further explanation.

“Then that should settle it, right?” Rakuyo piped up further down the table, leaning around Blamenco to look at Marco, “if Red-Hair is friends with Ace then that removes the possibility of him attacking.”

“Not that he would be stupid enough to try anything, even if he wanted to,” Vista added, twirling his impressive moustache between his fingers as Marco glared at him, feeling betrayed. “He has crossed blades with Pops many a time and never won. It would be foolish to make a serious attempt on Pops’ life while on board his own ship, and Red-Hair is not a fool, despite how you feel about him, Marco.”

Marco privately disagreed, thinking Shanks was very much the type of fool who was so foolish that he came around full circle and appeared distinctly _un_foolish.

“C’mon, dude,” Thatch said, smirking at Marco, “stop being so stuck up and read between the lines a little. Red-Hair wants to get you in the sack, simple as. That’s why he bothers you so much; it’s the best way to get your attention. You’ll feel a whole lot better if you just let him get you on your back.”

Marco would have very much liked to strangle Thatch for that comment, the idiot, suggesting something so hideous in front of Pops. All of the commanders laughed, Ace thumping him on the back as he snorted.

“I could say the same about you and Beckman,” Marco retorted coolly, folding his arms, “you always follow him like a puppy whenever we see them. It’s embarrassing, frankly.”

“Whoa, hey, he is seriously cool,” Thatch said, “I hero-worship the guy.”

“Yes, and it’s very obvious. Have some pride, man.”

Whitebeard raised his hands to silence the table, cutting off Thatch’s comeback. They all stopped immediately, although several continued to smirk silently at Marco.

“So we are in agreement that we shall host the Red-Haired crew upon their arrival?” Pops asked the room at large.

Everyone murmured their approval, Ace and Thatch’s voices prominent among the rest in their eagerness to see Shanks and Beckman again. Marco didn’t say anything, frowning. It wasn’t like they had a choice in the matter, regardless of how Whitebeard phrased it, seeing as the crew were definitely already on their way to them and Pops wanted that sake.

“Marco?”

His gaze flicked up to Whitebeard, his heart softening at the look of concern on his father’s face at his lack of response. It shouldn’t, but it hurt to witness.

“Fine,” he sighed, resigning to the inevitable, “but don’t expect me to become best buddies with Red-Hair.”

* * *

To say that he was less than thrilled to see Shanks would have been an understatement. Marco stood rigid on deck, arms tightly folded across his chest, as Shanks and his crew boarded. The captain greeted Whitebeard heartily, high-fiving him - Marco rolled his eyes - and tugging forward the most enormous bottle of sake imaginable. Whitebeard roared with laughter, clapping Shanks on the shoulder and swinging the bottle up into the crook of his elbow with minimal effort.

“There’s more where that came from too, big guy,” Shanks grinned, indicating back to the Red Force with it’s skeleton crew left on board for safety, “if it’s all the same to you, we’ll have a couple of your giants haul the rest over.”

“You have outdone yourselves this time, Red-Hair,” Whitebeard chortled happily, turning back to the deck and beckoning that his guests follow, “this is top quality stuff; I recognise the town’s name printed on the back. You have a good eye for sake.”

“Only the best for you,” Shanks said humbly, moving forward alongside the other Yonko, “lord knows you’d realise if I tried to palm off something cheap on you.”

Whitebeard threw back his head and laughed, the sound splitting the air and startling the seagulls that were sat along the sails. Marco felt a muscle in his jaw twitch as Shanks laughed along with Pops.

And then, to his immense dismay, Shanks caught sight of him standing by Pops’ seat. Shanks cried with delight and hurried towards him, face shining with the grin that plastered itself there. Marco’s frown only deepened.

“Marco!” Shanks cried happily, getting up and personal immediately and slinging his arm around Marco’s shoulders, tugging him down a few inches, “I’ve missed you, man! How long’s it been this time?”

“Not long enough,” Marco grumbled, unable to stop himself.

Shanks laughed hard, deafening the captive blond. “Oh, I’ve missed your ways! Hey, have you thought any more on my offer? You ready to join me and my boys yet?”

Marco shrugged out from under Shanks’ hold roughly. He had known it was coming - it always did, after all - but he still hated to hear it. The idea that Shanks even entertained the possibility that Marco would abandon his Pops and his brothers was an insult, and that was all there was to it. Shanks was arrogant, idiotic, and not welcome here, as far as he was concerned.

“Shut it,” he warned, stepping backwards as Shanks tried to grab at him again, that damn grin still firmly in place, “I have no intention of joining you, you must know that by now.”

Shanks hummed, grin broadening. “A man can but try, hm?” he said happily. His attention snapped to someone behind Marco, and Shanks seemed to light up with recognition. “Oh, is that Ace I see?!”

He bounded off again, leaving Marco feeling prematurely exhausted by his infuriating energy and persistent enthusiasm. He watched as Shanks positively leapt on Ace, the pair yelling with delight at the sight of each other and embracing far too enthusiastically for Marco’s liking. Shanks had no business being as hands-on as he was with any of them.

Not that his own boys were setting any kind of example - Thatch was almost as bad as Shanks, edging up to Beckman with a look of reverence upon his features, stammering nonsense when Benn looked at him questioningly. Rakuyo and Haruta were leading Yasopp off only God knew where, looking far too excited to be in his company again and illustrating their combined story wildly with their hands. Blamenco was chatting animatedly with Lucky Roo, and Izou was deep in conversation with Rockstar.

Since when had any of them been this interested in the Red-Haired pirates? Marco sighed, exasperated. Perhaps they kept it under wraps because of his painfully obvious dislike for Shanks. That was probably it. Those guys.

It was going to be a very long few days.

* * *

  
  
The party that followed their guests’ arrival was hellaciously noisy and charged with an energy that usually accompanied big wins against tough opponents. Food and drink were consumed in enormous quantities, the sounds of men belching and laughing ringing out across the immensely vast deck.

The musicians from both crews went all out with their instruments, playing the jauntiest of tunes and gleefully encouraging their crewmates to dance drunkenly to their jigs. Many men who Marco knew to never give in to the beat of the drums were on their feet, dancing out of sync with the rhythm of the music and laughing so hard they had to hold each other up. Under any other circumstances he would have loved to have seen his brothers enjoying themselves so thoroughly, but this… this annoyed him.

Ace, of course, was on his feet too, always the centre of attention, forever up for a laugh and a good time with the men. He threw his head back in careless abandon, laughing wide and loud as Shanks caught him around the waist, preventing him from drunkenly throwing himself backwards with the motion. Marco’s eyes narrowed as Ace was hauled upright again and he crashed into Shanks’ chest, holding onto the redhaired man’s shoulders and laughing into his neck.

Shanks _really _had no business touching his crew like that.

“Relax!” Thatch hollered in his ear, shoving a bottle of rum into his chest non too gently, “get drunk! Eat some beer! Drink some- some- fuck me, I’ve lost Benn!”

Marco snickered as Thatch wandered off again, departing as suddenly as he’d arrived, drunkenly tottering at random in his search for Beckman. Marco knew Beckman had given Thatch the slip and had left for the stern with Lucky Roo, Rakuyo and Vista, having watched them do so some 15 minutes ago. He couldn’t say he blamed him - Thatch was cuddly when drunk, and his affections were solely reserved for his idol that night.

But Marco had no intention of getting drunk. No, he would stand right here and watch his crew and captain dissolve into a fetid stew of vomit and beer and sake, no doubt, and he would witness any misendeavors that Shanks would undoubtedly pull. He would forcibly eject Shanks from the Moby Dick at the first sign of him doing something he really shouldn’t.

But did that include dancing with Ace? Did it stretch to Shanks pressing his palm to the boy’s lower back and pulling him in to yell in his ear over the din of the music? Marco bristled as he watched Ace turn his face to yell something back, grin wide on his lips. He didn’t like this, didn’t like watching Shanks touching one of his own so intimately, ulterior motives or not.

Marco swung round to check on Pops, wanting to see if he too was keeping a close eye on their guest. But no, Marco saw with a heave of a sigh, no, Pops had his face deep in a cup of that sake Shanks had brought him, listening to a story that Fossa was yelling to him.

Marco turned back and felt a stab of horror; in the few seconds he had turned away, Ace had somehow, _somehow_, ended up on his back on the deck. With Shanks on top of him, laughing his head off, supporting his weight on his hand next to Ace’s face.

Oh, that was _definitely_ enough of that.

He knew that it was almost certainly harmless and innocent, that in all likeliness Ace had probably stumbled just a bit too far back for Shanks to right him properly this time, and they had gone down in a mess of limbs. But fury pounded through Marco’s veins as he strode across the deck towards them, twisting out of the grasp of a couple from his division and side-stepping an incredibly drunk Jozu as he rolled on the floor.

Marco stopped beside the giggling idiots and hauled Shanks upright by his shirt. Shanks looked at him for a second before grinning bright and wide.

“Marco!” he yelled, flinging his arm around the blond and pulling him into a hug that Marco did not reciprocate, “where’ve you been?! I want to dance with you too, Marco, but Ace said that you wouldn’t wanna. That’s just _mean_.”

He sagged against Marco, pulling heavy on his shoulder as Ace finally managed to pull himself upright as well, dragging himself up into a sitting position by the hem of Shanks’ shirt.

“Marco’s such a misery right now,” Ace slurred, pointing at Marco, who very much wanted to rid himself of Shanks’ dead weight, “he thinks you’re stupid, Shanks, did you know that? I don’t, I love you, man.”

Shanks’ face crumpled into a pout, a look that Marco had never seen and had no desire to see again. “Really?” Shanks whined. “You really don’t like me? I always thought you were just playin’ hard to get.”

No, Marco actually didn’t like him. He genuinely did not like Shanks because of how he behaved. Marco could deal with the drunk parties, with Shanks’ love of having a good time whenever the mood struck. He would admit that he admired Shanks’ strength and his power and would never wish to cross his path on the battlefield. He was even big enough to confess that yes, actually, he liked the way Shanks could light up a room and change the atmosphere for the better wherever he went, much like Ace or Thatch could.

But he could not excuse Shanks’ casual sneer at their family unit. The way he seemed to look down on them, regard them as just a crew and not the family that they were. That he could so honestly ask Marco to leave them all and mean it, actually mean to take him away if he said yes, as if Marco’s love for Pops and his brothers was only barely skin-deep. It was deeply insulting and rude, to say the absolute least. Anyone who regarded them as such was merely filth, as far as Marco was concerned. Even if that person was another of the Yonko.

“That’s neither here nor there,” Marco said dismissively, not wanting to incite a raging argument with a drunk who could drop the majority of the crew with just his willpower, “but you need to leave Ace alone now.”

“No way!” Ace squawked, seizing Shanks round the middle and holding on fiercely, “leave him alone, Marco. We’re having a good time here.”

Marco grit his teeth. This was exactly the opposite of what he was trying to achieve, what with Ace now clinging to Shanks instead of getting well out of arm’s reach of him. Shanks let go of Marco and ruffled Ace’s hair, chuckling.

“I need to talk to Red-Hair. Alone,” Marco said pointedly.

“Uh-oh,” Ace singsonged, looking seriously at Shanks, his eyes slightly unfocused thanks to the copious amounts of alcohol he’d consumed, “you’re gonna get told off, Shanks. Marco only ever wants a ‘private word’ when you’ve fucked around with Thatch’s hair products or set fire to something when you shouldn’t.”

Shanks laughed, fluffing Ace’s already messy hair even more, making it look positively wild. “You mean that’s why _you _get a talking to,” he grinned, “I’ve got a feeling he wants to talk about something completely different with me. I don’t even know who Thatch is, for starters.”

Marco couldn’t stop his lip curling in disgust. There it was, yet another reason why he couldn’t stand the Yonko. Marco had made it his business to learn the names of every prominent member of the Red-Haired pirate crew, and had figured out years ago after careful observation what their habits were and what they were like as individuals. Shanks, on the other hand, couldn’t give a flying fuck about any one of the Whitebeards other than Pops, Marco, and Ace, clearly.

Such arrogance.

“C’mon, up you get,” Marco said gruffly, hauling Shanks to his feet, thankful that Ace finally let him go with no resistance.

“See you later, Ace!” Shanks called cheerfully as he was led away, holding himself upright by wrapping his arm around Marco’s waist, much to the commander’s disgust. Ace waved them away sadly, perking up again immediately as he found himself yanked up to his feet by Deuce and led back into the thronging mass of dancing and yelling pirates.

Marco hadn’t actually planned on finding himself alone in the company of the one man he didn’t want anything to do with. He didn’t know what he had planned to do other than somehow get Shanks off his brother, had let the rage at the sight of them like that carry his feet and freeze his mind. He didn’t have a plan, but he would take this chance to say his piece to the other man.

He led them down a deserted corridor, one that led to one of the firearms closets and, weirdly enough, a laundry room full of spare bed linen. No one would bother them down here.

A sudden boldness seized Marco as he pushed Shanks up against the wall, meeting no resistance from the far more powerful man, in fact finding himself face to face with a grin and relaxed eyes. So Shanks didn’t consider him worthy of even the faintest hint of concern?

“Look,” Marco hissed, “I want to set a few things straight with you, Red-Hair. You sober enough to have this conversation and remember it, or will I have to repeat myself again tomorrow?”

“Please, call me Shanks,” Shanks grinned lazily at Marco, bumping the back of his head to the wooden wall, looking utterly at peace with the situation, “I do love it when you say my name, O’ beautiful Phoenix.”

All the more reason not to do so, then.

“I don’t like you,” Marco snarled, cutting straight to the chase, never one to mince his words or hide his meaning in phatic conversation, “and you know I don’t, whatever you said back there. I don’t want you on my ship. I find you arrogant and rude, and you are a poor influence on Pops. Do me a favor and take your crew away again in the morning. I don’t care what you have to say to Pops, make something up; he’ll get over it.”

Shanks blinked slowly at him, as if letting the words wash over him and filter into his drunk mind as Marco breathed heavily, the anger building the longer Shanks took to respond. He’d never been this blunt with him before, but it felt good to finally put it out there in the open.

“Now that,” Shanks said with a sigh, “is not a very nice thing to say, Marco.”

Marco leaned in a little closer, lowering his voice dangerously. “No, it isn’t, but there you have it.”

Shanks groaned and flexed his shoulders, rolling them; one of them cracked audibly. Marco didn’t move, didn’t take his eyes off Shanks’ face as the captain smiled languidly at him.

“You look so much hotter when you lose your composure,” Shanks said, “when you’re all angry and tense. You always have this mask of cool on, never bothered by anything; I’m enjoying watching it fall apart right now, let me tell you.”

Marco slammed his fist against the wood next to Shanks’ head. He was really pushing his luck, he knew it, knew that he could find himself incapacitated or close to death in a heartbeat if Shanks stopped this game he was obviously playing, but a reckless anger had a hold of Marco and he did not care, wouldn’t care until he got his point through to Shanks.

“Are you mocking me?” He snapped.

“Certainly not,” Shanks raised his eyebrows in mild surprise, “just stating the obvious.”

He was mocking him.

“You’re going to stop asking me to join your crew,” Marco told him, hating the way Shanks continued to grin at him in that relaxed manner, “and you’re going to show us some respect from now on. Show _me _some respect.”

Shanks looked genuinely confused at this, brow furrowing slightly. “I do respect you,” he said, “all of you. I look up to Whitebeard like you couldn’t imagine. Why else would I bring my men here just to deliver some sake?”

“I don’t know,” Marco admitted, clenching his teeth, “but not even knowing who Thatch is? Actually thinking I would desert my family to run around with you? Get real, Red-Hair.”

Ah, even in his state of anger, Marco had to recognise he quite liked that flash of annoyance that passed over Shanks’ features at his continued refusal to use his name.

“I do know who Thatch is,” Shanks said.

“Bullshit,” Marco hissed, “you said so yourself that you don’t.”

“That was—” Shanks sighed, exasperated, despite having literally no right to take that tone with Marco right now, or ever, “don’t you know the difference between saying something to make light of a situation and genuine bone-headed ignorance?”

Marco huffed an incredulous sound through his nose. “Is there a difference when it comes to you?” he asked.

“Self-depreciation for the sake of a laugh? No?” Shanks sighed again at Marco’s continued hard stare. “Thatch, formerly Edward Thatch before he joined you guys, is the commander of the fourth division. Head chef. Big guy with the pompadour. Very obviously dyes his hair. Thinks he’s hot stuff with the ladies but has an enormous man-crush on my Benn. Hell, his birthday’s March 24th. You want me to start listing off his clothes sizes too, or is that enough?”

That surprised Marco. Stunned him silent. Made him blink wide-eyed at Shanks, forgetting his anger for a moment.

“How do you—”

“Shall I do another?” Shanks asked, his grin sliding back into place at Marco’s open disbelief that he knew so much about a Whitebeard pirate, “let’s see… how about the fifth division commander, Vista? The guy with the top hat. Uses the same moustache wax as Whitebeard. His birthday’s February 5th and—”

“That’s enough, you’ve proven your point.”

Marco leaned back, relaxing his stance a little and removing his fist from beside Shanks’ head.

He had been wrong. Completely - or at least partially - wrong. Shanks knew vastly more than he had led them to believe, and honestly, that was frightening. It gave him a power over them that they had not considered, a possible psychological edge, depending on how much he really knew.

“But how did you—” he started, unable to stop the question from leaving him, but Shanks cut him off, clearly expecting it.

“The same way you learned so much about my crew,” Shanks said easily, cocking his head somewhat coyly, eyeing Marco with intense interest. “Oh yes, I noticed. Several years ago, when we all landed in port together and spent that festival week drunk off our tits and high as kites. You were neither, although you were exceptionally good at faking it, I must admit. I saw you watching my boys, listening to their stories, actually paying attention to the nuances of the tales and taking it all in. Your fellow commanders may have been write-offs, but you… you were entirely sober the whole time.”

Another shock, another slap to the face in the form of realisation that he had once again underestimated Shanks. And, furthermore, Shanks had stopped slurring, had started using words like ‘several’ and ‘nuances’…

Marco smiled, sly. “A bit like how you really aren’t as drunk as you made out in front of Ace, I suppose?”

“Got it in one, my friend.”

Marco huffed a laugh. “I’m not your friend.”

“No, but I honestly would like you to be.”

The atmosphere changed perceptibly as Shanks brought his hand up from his side, running his fingertips down Marco’s left cheek slowly. Marco twitched away from the contact on instinct, frowning in bewilderment as Shanks’ hand reminded where it had touched him.

“I’d like you to be a whole lot more than my friend, Marco,” Shanks said quietly, his voice low.

Dangerous. More dangerous than at any point throughout this mess of a conversation, and Marco suppressed a shudder at that tone in Shanks’ voice. It told him to run, to get help, to not stay here alone with such a man.

“I ask you to join my crew not because I think little of your love for your family,” Shanks continued, slowly, so very slowly, allowing his hand to reach out a little further and brush the pads of his fingers along Marco’s neck, “but because I can’t help myself. I know the answer, but making a joke out of it is so much easier than accepting that it won’t happen.”

He rubbed his thumb over Marco’s Adam’s apple, dragging down, down, into the dip of his clavicle, his fingers splaying out over the long collar bone as Marco swallowed. He didn’t know how to counter this, could only wait and see what Shanks had to say, to see if this really was going where the more primitive part of his mind was telling him it was.

“Did you know,” Shanks said, his voice rumbling low in his chest, as his hand trailed still further south, tracing the outlines of the tattoo branded into Marco’s chest, “that I have wanted you ever since the first time I saw you as a teenager? I was, what, fourteen, I think? You arrived on our ship after being instructed by Whitebeard to remain with the crew; he was furious at you for disobeying him, but all I saw was your beauty and passion.”

Marco managed to unstick his throat, rasping, “I remember that.”

Shanks hummed. “You would do. As you landed in your phoenix form, I asked you to join our crew for the first time. You were incredible, so effortlessly stunning and so powerful once back in your human form. I was mesmerised. I’d never seen anything like you before. So,” Shanks’ smile twisted into something hungry, borderline tipping into feral, as he thumbed over Marco’s nipple, earning a twitch of those solid pectoral muscles, “I learned everything about you. I really, _really _liked what I learned. And I have never given up on one day having you.”

He coaxed Marco in closer, fingers leaving his rapidly heating skin to tug at his shirt, walking Marco a step closer to him. Marco allowed it, utterly dumbfounded by this discovery and having no idea how the hell he was supposed to process it.

“I know full well I will never have you in my crew,” Shanks breathed, sliding his palm down Marco’s arm, coming to rest against the back of his palm, “and, honestly? I would never want you separated from your Pops. You belong here. But…”

He guided Marco’s hand to the front of his pants, pressing his palm firm to cup his fully hard erection below the thin material. Marco’s breath hitched, his cheeks coloring; he could feel every detail of that swollen organ, could feel the heat and the swell of it as Shanks’ palm to the back of his own pressed him against it harder. Marco looked at his palm and back up to Shanks’ eyes, lidded with lust and heavy with desire.

For him.

“A man can still dream of one day having you underneath him, if nothing else,” Shanks said easily.

Marco could only gape at him, a single thought running through his mind, the memory of Thatch smirking at him across the meeting room table, insisting that Marco would ‘_feel a whole lot better if you just let him get you on your back’_.

Thatch had been right. He had seen what Marco was blind to. God fuck it.

“However,” Shanks said, his voice returning to it’s normal volume and strength, letting go of Marco’s hand pressed to him and stretching pointedly, “a man also knows how far to push his luck. So if you’ll excuse me, your lovely boy Ace will most likely be so stinking drunk by now that he’ll be an absolute goldmine of embarrassing stories about you. I’m not usually one to take advantage of the inebriated, but,” he shrugged nonchalantly, “when an opportunity presents itself in a cute freckly package, you gotta take it, y’know?”

And Shanks left him with a wave of his hand, left Marco confused and slow to process what the fuck had just happened between them.

And left him a little aroused too, much to his immense horror and irritation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL. That was damn self-indulgent. I love this rarepair and am so frustrated there's so little of it out there. So I'm writing it myself. Hmph.  
I love love love the idea of Shanks being a secret writhing mess of lust for Marco and Marco just being utterly oblivious to it. Help me.
> 
> I will continue this if there's an audience for it! Part two is planned in my filthy little mind, but it won't be written if there's no calling for it because this works fine as a stand-alone piece, honestly. But... let me know, one way or the other.


	2. Chapter 2

Marco sipped at his coffee without really tasting it, laying the cup to the wooden table with a dull thump and running a hand through his hair with a sigh.

He was not an arrogant man by nature, neither pretentious nor full of himself, and so Marco never had any difficulty admitting to himself or to others when he was wrong. Although, honestly, the occasions when he actually _did _get something wrong were very few and far between nowadays, and given his ranking and overall power it usually meant that he had seriously fucked up with dire consequences.

Like now, for example.

He had fucked up badly, he conceded with a groan, recalling his conversation with Shanks from the night before. Shanks’ perseverance throughout the years in trying to get Marco to join him had not, in fact, been a snide dig at the Whitebeard family’s strength of their bond. And it had not, it transpired, been because of some inflated sense of self-importance that Shanks deemed it necessary to pursue Whitebeard’s first mate with unrelenting vigor.

He had somehow read Shanks entirely wrong for the last twenty years, and that wasn’t the kind of mistake Marco could let go of overnight. If it had been almost any other situation, Marco’s inability to read his enemy correctly could have led to the injury or deaths of his crew.

No, wait, not enemy. What had Pops called them? Rivals, that was it.

Ah, semantics.

Marco blinked slowly, let his eyes close for just longer than necessary as he felt the pull of exhaustion in that moment. He would have to apologise to Shanks as soon as possible, but how could he just say sorry for years of misjudging him? How could he set right all those times he had been abrupt and cold to Shanks when, really, he probably shouldn’t have? And not to mention Shanks’ real reason for always making such a scene around Marco…

His cheeks felt hot to the touch as the blond buried his face in his hands, remembering the feel of the Yonko’s arousal pressed to his palm, announcing without room for misinterpretation exactly what Shanks really thought of him. He had assumed a hell of a lot of things of the red-haired pirate, but never that. He had never considered the possibility of being the object of Shanks’ desire. And, if he allowed himself to admit it, he was a little flattered by it all, by how Shanks had remained so clearly captivated by him for so long despite being constantly rebuffed.

Marco lifted his head slightly at the sound of the chair opposite him scraping along the floor as it was pulled back, unable to fight down the smirk at the sight of one incredibly hungover Thatch.

“I feel like I got smacked in the face by a fucking train,” Thatch groaned dramatically, dropping into the chair and laying his plate of toast in front of himself. The mess hall was almost empty; the few chefs that Thatch had wrangled together to make breakfast were also nursing hangovers, grumbling out of earshot of their commander as they served those who braved food that morning. Even by their ridiculous standards it had been one hell of a party.

Marco couldn’t help wanting to pick on his best friend to relieve the ache of shame that continued to pulse through him. “I don’t,” he said smugly, grinning through his fingers at Thatch’s look of disgust.

“How the hell you ever manage to stay sober is beyond me,” Thatch sighed, rubbing his temples, “yeah, I know you can just heal your liver and whatever else you do if you want to, but I don’t remember you drinking anything at all last night.”

“I’m surprised you remember anything, full stop,” Marco said, mildly impressed, “last I saw you, you were asleep wrapped around a barrel of beer.”

After recovering from the shock of finding himself to have physically responded to the feel of Shanks’ cock in his hand, Marco had gone in search of Thatch. When it became obvious that Thatch was in no state to listen to anything Marco had to say, he’d given up and gone to bed far earlier than normal, not wanting to risk seeing Shanks again so soon. He hadn’t _hidden_, per se, just… tactically removed himself.

But now, after spending most of the night running over the event and re-analysing just about every single interaction with Shanks he had ever had, Marco found himself glad for not being able to spill the gossip to Thatch the night before after all. No, he wanted to sit on this and think for a while longer, decide what he wanted to do with the information before divulging it to anyone else.

“Yes,” Thatch said absently, picking up a piece of toast and biting into it with no enthusiasm, “I never did find Beckman again. I vaguely remember crying myself to sleep, as you do when fucked up on beer and rum.”

“Who got fucked with a beer bottle?” came Shanks’ amused voice from behind Marco, making Thatch wince and go back to massaging his temples.

Marco’s heart seemed to stop when he turned round in his seat, trying to keep his expression neutral at the sight of Ace, also clearly sporting a hangover, beside Shanks, who didn’t actually seem too bad off. Ace perked up a little as they made eye contact, no longer looking like Shanks had dragged him straight from an early grave, but he appeared almost dulled compared to Shanks’ knowing, piercing gaze. Marco avoided Shanks’ eyes as best he could, suppressing the urge to bite the inside of his lip at the heat of that look. Please, _please _don’t let Thatch notice it…

“Not _with_,” Thatch snorted, blessedly only having eyes for his toast in that moment, “I didn’t get any action last night from anything, bottle or person, you filthy beast. I know,” he added, nodding at Marco as he turned back to face him, “I was disappointed too. I wouldn’t have said no to a good, hard fuck last night.”

Marco tried to hold his tongue, but couldn’t help himself. “So that’s why you wanted Beckman,” he teased. “And here I was thinking you just idolised the poor guy.”

“I do!” Thatch retorted sharply, whining and clutching his head immediately. “I don’t mean with Beckman, for God’s sake, Marco.”

But Marco’s smile vanished as the chair to his left was pulled out, noticing too late the significance of Ace taking the seat opposite him beside Thatch. Marco felt his heart dance in his chest as Shanks sat down heavily with a great sigh, looking utterly relaxed and at home surrounded by three of Whitebeard’s top men while none of his own were in sight.

Something seemed… different, though, Marco realised as he felt for any sign of Shanks’ haki or unspoken indication that the captain was on his guard. He found nothing; Shanks was completely at ease, evidently feeling no need to be actively wary around them.

_Why_, though? What had changed? Of course, this had also been the case the day before, too, but Marco had assumed that this was because Shanks had had his men around, had taken this as yet another sign that Shanks was an arrogant bastard who knew himself to be powerful enough to hold his own against any of them should the visit turn sour.

But he was wrong - Shanks’ body language told him so, lounging beside him in pure evidence. This was the stance and atmosphere of a man relaxing with his friends, not of someone who considered his present company to be below him and of no threat. Marco, Ace, and Thatch were not regarded as possible threats because Shanks knew and understood fully that they _weren’t_, simply because they were not enemies. He liked them, and they liked him, and it really was as basic as that. Nothing had changed at all; Marco was just reading Shanks correctly now, no longer blinkered by his misconceptions of the Yonko.

Marco felt that knot of shame twist in his gut again, painfully reminding him of the fact that he alone had thought of the Red-Haired pirates - and Shanks in particular - as their enemies. As an immediate threat. As people they could not relax around, could not slip into the familiar pull of friendship with under any circumstances.

He’d been wrong. Again.

“If not with Benn, then who?” Shanks asked, genuinely curious, as Ace grunted in thanks at the toast that was slid across the table to him from Thatch. “Who’s your secret heart ache?”

“Don’t have one,” Thatch replied, finishing the piece of toast he’d kept for himself, “I don’t do secret crushes. I’d have liked to have woken up next to someone hot and sexy though, like one of the nurses, for example.”

“I’m hot and sexy,” Ace mumbled helpfully, earning a snort from both Thatch and Shanks in return.

“No you’re not, you’re hungover and reek of vomit,” Thatch laughed, thumping Ace on the back as Ace blinked at him blearily, “now eat your toast and soak up that alcohol, there’s a good boy.”

Marco huffed a laugh as Ace complied obediently, picking up the marmalade-coated toast and taking an enormous bite of it.

The sound that left him was cut short, coming to an abrupt halt as Marco felt the firm slide of fingers along the top of his left thigh under the table. He tensed, gaze flickering between Ace and Thatch, but neither of them seemed to notice that their friend was now currently being felt up by their red-haired guest. He didn’t dare look at Shanks, didn’t even entertain the thought of showing that he was in any way drawn short by what was happening.

What the hell was he thinking? Marco couldn’t tell, and the conclusion he reached immediately was almost definitely going to be the wrong one, judging by how wrong he always seemed to be about Shanks. However, admittedly, Marco also wouldn’t put it past Shanks to enjoy watching him writhe in public.

“You wouldn’t turn me down if I came on to you,” Ace said confidently, finishing his first piece of toast and starting on a second, “not if I turned on the charm.”

Thatch snorted so loud that Ace winced at the noise, and Marco felt Shanks laughing beside him, but his focus was entirely captured by the way Shanks’ hand was steadily creeping up his thigh. Shanks’ long black cloak that was slung around his shoulders helped hide the evidence of his arm being anywhere other than his side, stopping the two other commanders from noticing the way he was reaching under the table. Not that either of them were at all in the right minds to be noticing anything subtle anyway, what with their hangovers and most likely still being a little drunk.

“My boy,” Thatch replied, blissfully unaware of Shanks’ fingers pressing and curling against the more sensitive part of Marco’s thigh, edging inwards slowly, “don’t give me that shit. You know full well that I don’t—”

But Marco zoned out, stopped listening to Thatch and Ace bicker over whether or not Thatch could be charmed into bedding the younger commander, as Shanks squeezed at the top of his thigh. Marco chanced a glance at him, anger bubbling up in his chest to see that Shanks was watching Ace, a smile on his lips and expression relaxed. A perfect poker face if Marco had ever seen one. The fucker.

So Shanks wanted to play games, did he? Marco could do that, no problem. If a poker face was what Shanks was bringing to the table, then so would he.

Marco shifted his hips in his seat a little, leaning forward and crossing his arms on the table in front of himself in an attempt to further hide what was happening in his lap. He glanced at Shanks again and this time found Shanks already looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Smirking. So Marco grinned right back, the smile forced and too wide.

“It’s nice to see you two getting along at last,” Ace commented, catching the pair sizing each other up and entirely missing the sparks passing between them, “when you took Shanks off last night I thought you were gonna start a fight with him.”

Before Marco could even open his mouth to a sensible response, he felt those damn curious fingers dip lower, inwards, dragging soft and explorative between his thighs once before repeating the motion more firmly. His hips twitched forwards into the touch on reflex, fingernails digging into the palm of his own hand as Marco willed himself not to react, to not give anything else away. He had, technically, already failed by responding to the drag over his penis, but that was not the aim of Shanks’ game. No, he would only be out when either Ace or Thatch noticed something.

_Just you try it, Red-Hair._

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Marco scolded, his expression one of calm as he mentally begged his body to not react to Shanks’ touch, “I wouldn’t actively look for a fight with Red-Hair. We just had a—” he paused, suppressing the gasp of surprise that threatened to escape his throat as Shanks gripped him harder, almost angrily, at the use of his title rather than his name. Marco grinned slyly and finally, _finally_ turned just enough to look Shanks in the eye properly. “We cleared a few things up, didn’t we, _Red-Hair_?”

Shanks’ eyes narrowed for the briefest of moments as he returned Marco’s gaze before breaking into the fucking fakest smile Marco had ever seen him pull. “That’s right,” he agreed, “we just set right some misunderstandings, that’s all. Nothing to worry about, Ace.”

But Ace frowned at them, struggling to swallow the last of his toast. He coughed, earning a whack on his back from Thatch, and winced as the toast finally went down.

“This is why you don’t shovel your food,” Thatch scolded lightly. Ace shot him a look before trying again.

“But you never came back,” he said to Marco. “Shanks came back after a while and started asking me all sorts of questions about you—” Marco raised an eyebrow at Shanks, earning a smirk in return, “—but you never showed up again.”

Marco sighed, trying with all his might to keep the tremor out of his breath. He was responding to Shanks’ touch under the table, his body betraying him and reacting to the continuous firm slide of those fingers along his cock. He hated to admit it, but it felt good. So _good_. His heart rate was climbing, his palms were starting to get clammy, and he was sure he was half-mast already. Shanks could feel it too, obviously, but he wasn’t giving it away in either his expression or his words.

“I—” he shivered, unable to suppress it as Shanks dragged his thumb over the head of Marco’s cock through his pants, the friction just _barely _there and leaving him aching for more. Why had he thought this was a good idea, again? “I went to bed. I wasn’t in the mood for a party afterwards.”

Ah, he’d said the wrong thing, he realised too late. Shanks was demanding his whole attention, keeping him focused on maintaining his mask and not giving in to the sensations down below, and he had gone ahead and worried Ace. Dammit.

“Why?” Ace demanded immediately, frowning at the pair of them. “What happened?”

But Shanks was on hand to help out, much to Marco’s intense annoyance, interjecting before he could come up with a sensible response. He clenched his teeth to hold back a groan as Shanks rubbed him just right, palm pressing against him when Marco’s hips strained into the touch, not daring to move properly but aching for more of that sensation.

“Nothing bad,” Shanks said lightly, so casual and cool despite thoroughly working over Marco below the table, all of the movement in his wrist and fingers to avoid giving anything away up top, “we just chatted about the past and Marco got a bit embarrassed. That’s all.”

Thatch spluttered a laugh as Marco ran his hand through his hair, trying, _trying_ so damn hard to keep it together.

He wanted to unzip his pants and pull himself out, let Shanks touch him properly, let him do what he so very clearly wanted to do and make Marco come, tip him over into orgasm and then slam him onto the table, strip him, bear down on him, fuck him rough and raw and _bite him_—

“Marco? Embarrassed?” Thatch’s disbelieving tone ripped Marco from his very sudden, very intense fantasy, leaving him with a racing heart and his erection fully hard. Marco could almost _feel _Shanks grinning at him smugly. “What the hell did you talk about to get _Marco_ to be _embarrassed_?”

Shanks shrugged. “A little of this, a little of that,” he said vaguely. “We both made mistakes when we were younger, as I’m sure you did too. It was fun to bring them up again.”

He was losing focus again, losing grip on the conversation fast as the sound of his blood pumping in his ears took over. It was too much to be coping with in front of his friends, the touch not enough through the fabric, Shanks’ pace not quick enough, the coil and ache of desperate _want _to come starting to become overpowering.

Marco _never _lost composure unless he meant to, not in front of others, and he would not lose it now. Not because of Shanks, of all people. He knew when to concede and admit that he had lost a round.

He stood abruptly, pushing the chair back hard as he rose; Shanks had the good sense to snatch his hand back and blink up at Marco innocently, looking just as bewildered and confused as Ace and Thatch. Marco turned away, hiding his erection straining at the front of his pants as he made a fuss of tucking the chair back in under the table, confident that neither of the other commanders had caught sight of it.

“Bathroom,” he mumbled, feeling their eyes on him but not meeting any of them. He turned away swiftly, leaving the mess hall as quickly as he could to the sounds of Thatch laughing something about obscene bowel movements.

He had lost to Shanks.

He had been an idiot to think that he could win at all in the first place.

* * *

  
  
Marco took care of himself quickly back in his bedroom, throbbing hot in his hand as he bit his lip hard enough to draw blood in his effort to stop Shanks’ name slipping out. He healed the bite, a flash of cyan flickering along his lip before extinguishing suddenly, leaving the skin as good as new.

But he couldn’t heal his inner turmoil as easily.

Had he not just spent the last twenty or so years disliking Shanks? Was he so pent up and primitive that he could change his mind on someone when presented with the promise of sexual attention so easily?

_That’s not right_, Marco thought with finality as he left his room again and strode back towards the deck. _It wasn’t Shanks himself that I didn’t like. It was his attitude - my misunderstanding. He himself is fine, has always been fine._

He knew that much for certain, at least.

Marco also knew that he was not one to bend to the wills and wishes of another for any reason unless he wished it himself too. There had been plenty of people, men and women, who had wanted to sleep with him or had become smitten with him in the past. Sonya the nurse, for example, was very clearly taken with him, but Marco felt no desire for her after learning that fact. No, his change of heart for Shanks had nothing to do with just going along with the flow, and everything to do with finally allowing himself to think of the Yonko as just _Shanks _rather than _the idiot who belittles me_.

He felt exhausted again.

The door to Pops’ room creaked as Marco opened it slowly, peering inside and whispering, “Pops? You awake?”

But he was greeted by a deep, rumbling snore from the giant of a man and the sight of one of the nurses, a dark-haired young woman, pressing a finger to her lips from where she sat beside their father. She mouthed the words ‘he’s really hungover’ to Marco and indicated to the IV bag of fluid that was rehydrating him, and Marco nodded with a smile.

He left the room again and closed the door gently; he could wait to speak to Pops. He didn’t have a concrete plan in mind anyway, not knowing how to inform his father that his rival wanted his first mate for himself in ways that they had never considered.

This was getting silly.

He needed to feel the wind beneath his wings and clear his head a little.

* * *

Marco was gone for barely an hour, finding it impossible to stay away for any longer. Yes, he knew full well that the Red-Haired pirates would not use his absence as an excuse to suddenly turn rogue and start anything on board, but still he worried. Worrying and planning for the ‘what ifs’ was kind of a big part of his role, and he was excellent at it.

He landed back on the deck of the Moby Dick in a spiral of blue flames, transforming from feet to head as he touched down, leaving his arms to last with one final beat of his immensely huge wings. The men present on deck cheered him, as was customary for the crew to do whenever he came back from a flight, and among them stood Shanks and Beckman. Shanks looked breathless, elated to see Marco in his phoenix form, as ever. Marco frowned at the excitement he was met with, having not anticipated seeing Shanks so soon again after finally calming down; he had trusted Ace to have kept him busy with some silly shenanigan somewhere for most of the morning.

But no, Ace had fallen asleep not too long ago, he was informed by Deuce as he made his way to the medical bay for his late morning check-ups with the other doctor. Ace had taken his second breakfast with him to the deck with Shanks and had collapsed in a snoring heap beside the panicked captain. Marco could not help the smirk that crept onto his face as Deuce told the story; Shanks had never witnessed one of Ace’s narcoleptic attacks and had been incredibly worried, apparently.

“It’s the cataplexy that catches people off guard,” Deuce said, taking a file that was handed to him by one of the nurses, “that moment when he suddenly drops like a sack of potatoes. The narcoleptic sleep is more gradual and gentle - if it was just that then he’d go down far more slowly, although still ridiculously fast by normal sleep standards, of course - but the cataplexy that accompanies it—” Deuce dropped the file from shoulder height onto the desk he stoop next to to illustrate his point, “straight down. You should have seen Red-Hair’s face.”

Marco sincerely wished he had.

But his thoughts were soon diverted from Shanks as he began to attend to his patients, many of today’s intake simply being poor fools who had over-indulged in last night’s party. He felt immeasurably better about hiding away in the medical bay when one of the nurses mentioned that Whitebeard was now up and already asking for sake.

Shanks was Pops’ problem for now.

* * *

  
  
But problems had a bad habit of coming back to find him later, Marco reminded himself with a heavy sigh as he changed out of his surgical scrubs and pulled his shirt back on. He had finished up a rather nasty inguinal hernia repair procedure - supporting Deuce rather than leading it himself - only to hear the start of yet another party out on the deck. Did his boys never learn?

No, they did not, was the answer, perfectly happy to be led into another frenzied drinking party at barely five in the afternoon by the Red-Haired pirates. Or, specifically, by their captain.

Deuce delegated the position of ‘Pops Watch’ to himself this time, assuring the nurses and Marco that he had no interest in joining in the drunken rampage that would soon consume both crews. He would be much happier attempting to wrestle sake off Whitebeard for the evening, he said. Marco shrugged; each to their own, he supposed.

But Marco also didn’t want to join in with the nonsense that was already kicking off when he emerged on deck some 20 minutes later. The party already had a great atmosphere going on; the musicians were back at it, the two crews competing against each other to perform the best tunes to get the men dancing and waving their tankards wildly. Card games had sprung up all over the deck, some men already having lost shirts or shoes to the games of strip poker - Haruta seemed to be doing very well for himself in one particular game, his lap already full with others’ shirts as he caught Marco’s eye across the deck and grinned at him.

All he wanted to do was apologise to Shanks - he had missed his chance that morning thanks to Shanks’ wondering hand, and he had become so absorbed in his work later on that he hadn’t given the Yonko much thought. But that needed to change, and fast; Marco wasn’t sure he could stand the guilt that bit at his stomach much longer.

But Shanks was nowhere to be seen in the mass of pirates, his distinct red hair that was usually easy to spot not visible among the crowd. Marco spotted Thatch with ease, though, sitting with Beckman and Yasopp at Pops’ feet, his hangover evidently cured, judging by the way he allowed Beckman to pour him a fresh tankard of mead.

Ace was another that was easy to pick out in the crowd, also apparently feeling much better than he had that morning as he danced with Izou, the pair laughing as they spun with linked arms in time to the clapping crowd around them. Marco smiled as he watched them for a moment, feeling far more at ease at the sight of Ace in Izou’s company rather than Shanks’.

So where _was _Shanks? It was a little unnerving to not be able to spot the absolute life, soul, and instigator of the party anywhere.

Cyan erupted along Marco’s shoulders and arms as he transformed them into his wings, not bothering to transform fully. He crouched low and took off with a powerful push, beating at the air as he flew towards the main-mast crow’s nest; he’d scan the ship from up there, and if he still couldn’t spot Shanks then he’d start below deck.

Not that he particularly wanted to talk to him. Of course not. This was purely out of nothing but obligation.

Honestly, thinking about it, he shouldn’t have felt surprised when he spotted his target right there in the crow’s nest that he was aiming for, leaning casually over the wooden side and watching him as he rose level. Shanks grinned at Marco as he drew closer, taking a step back when he came in to land on the side of the nest.

“How did you know I was up here?” Shanks asked as Marco’s wings vanished, his arms flickering with flames momentarily before settling.

He hadn’t.

“Intuition,” Marco lied with something of a smirk, hopping off the side and onto the floor in front of Shanks. “And you don’t seem at all surprised to see me.”

Shanks’ grin broadened. “Intuition,” he repeated back at Marco, “I knew you’d use the highest point to look for me once you established I wasn’t on deck.”

Marco huffed a laugh, shaking his head. He should have known Shanks had planned for them to meet up there, should have known that the captain knew full well he would come looking. It was damn infuriating, that habit of his, seeming to know what Marco was doing and thinking at any given moment.

“Bold of you to assume that I’d want to find you,” he countered.

“But I was right, wasn’t I?” Shanks’ eyes positively twinkled as Marco’s smile dropped into a frown. Shanks simply laughed, patting him on the arm fondly. Marco had walked right into that one.

“So what are you doing hanging around up here on the off chance I turn up, instead of enjoying the party I assume you started?” Marco asked, stepping away from Shanks and leaning against the side of the crow’s nest, his elbows resting on the top. “It’s not like you to hide away instead of approaching me head on. Or am I to assume that this is going to lead to something that you don’t want the others seeing?”

Marco felt smug as Shanks’ eyebrows rose, surprise at how direct he was being obvious on his face. There was no point dancing around the subject, Marco knew, absolutely no point whatsoever in being coy and pretending that last night and that incident at breakfast hadn’t happened, so he cut straight to the chase.

But Shanks, as ever, surprised him.

“No, actually,” he said, tone open and soft as he leaned against the mast opposite the blond, his hand resting behind his back in a sign of resignation, “I just wanted to talk to you, and it’s far easier to do so away from the crowd of drunks. I won’t blame you if you don’t believe me after this morning, but I have no ulterior motives.” He paused, looking off to the side as he thought, then added, “but if that’s what you want, I’d be quite open to the prospect of getting more intimate.”

Marco snorted, genuinely amused. “I don’t believe you for a second.”

Shanks shrugged but didn’t seem to take offence. “Of course you don’t. I know I wouldn’t.”

“Is that why you kicked off another party? To keep the guys busy while we have a heart to heart?”

“Am I that transparent?”

Marco cocked his head to one side, grinning. “Only a little.”

He was intrigued, truth be told, to find out what Shanks wanted to say, but after waiting this long he wanted to go first.

“Actually,” Marco continued, dropping his gaze to around Shanks’ right shoulder as he sought for the right words, “I did want to say something to you as well, before we get into anything else. Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Shanks said, leaning forward a little in anticipation. “What’s on your mind?”

Marco scratched at the back of his neck as he often did when suddenly put on the spot. He had rehearsed this in his mind, but now that it came to it he had to admit he felt a little foolish. But nerves be damned; he needed to say it. It was a matter of pride now.

“I want to apologise for my behaviour towards you since, well, forever,” he said, meeting Shanks’ eyes again; the intensity of his gaze left Marco dry-mouthed, pinned by it and feeling scrutinized, but he carried on. “I was wrong about you. I underestimated you and always assumed the worst. So I take back what I said last night; I’ve changed my mind. I don’t—” he swallowed; did Shanks _have_ to stare at him so intensely? “I don’t hate you. I hated what I thought I knew of you. So… I’m sorry.”

He felt his cheeks heat up with the admission, wanted to tear his eyes away from Shanks’ own that had darkened with _something_ he couldn’t quite put his finger on, and he wanted to leave and nurse his pride somewhere quiet with a lot of alcohol. He was never wrong about people. He always knew exactly what to say and do with just about anyone he ever met - he had been right on the money with Ace not too long ago, knowing that the boy needed some sharp, stern words after months of being babied by Thatch, and he had broken through where the others hadn’t succeeded.

So to straight up confess he was sorry like this to Shanks, with their less than amicable history and his record of constant dislike… it was difficult.

And Shanks knew that.

“Only the bravest and most humble of men can admit so readily when they are wrong about something,” he said gently, taking a step towards Marco. He did not miss the twitch Marco couldn’t suppress in his arm, that instinct readying himself for an attack, as he raised his hand to lay it against Marco’s bicep, gripping him. “It means a lot that you would apologise, and I’m grateful for it. As I said last night, I don’t look down on you or your crew’s bond. If anything, I envy it. You all maintain an incredible family unit and that, I believe, is where your true strength as a crew lies. It’s admirable.”

He stepped in closer still, looking up into Marco’s dark blue eyes, and Marco had to fight the very sudden, very terrifying urge to close that remaining space between them. Damn Shanks for confusing their relationship like this.

“So, thank you,” Shanks smiled, bright and warm, “and I hope this means that you will let us stay for another night?”

Marco hummed in mock consideration. “Maybe just one more,” he said with a wry smile, “if your boys don’t do anything they’ll regret in the morning.”

Shanks laughed and stepped away again, lowering himself to the floor and sitting quite comfortably with his back to the mast. “Come, sit,” he encouraged Marco, waving his hand in a downward motion to illustrate. Marco complied, sitting opposite the Yonko and crossing his legs to mirror him. Shanks reached to his right and grabbed up two bottles of beer that Marco hadn’t noticed before, handing one to him before clinking his own to it.

“To friendship!” Shanks said cheerfully, pulling a bottle opener from his pocket and prising both open. “To clearing my name after two decades and finally addressing a problem I should have acknowledged long ago!”

Marco rolled his eyes with a smile as Shanks took a long drink from the bottle; he was as much to blame in this as Shanks.

Even though it had been hard, and even though he could still feel the flush of pink coloring his cheeks, Marco felt lighter, somehow, after clearing things up with Shanks.

“So what did you want to talk about?” Marco prompted, taking a sip from his bottle but not really tasting it, far more interested in watching the way Shanks’ throat moved as he swallowed mouthful after mouthful of beer.

Shanks released his bottle with a pop, sighing and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nothing in particular,” he said, “I just wanted to spend some time with you. I hardly ever get to when we meet up, and it’s a real shame.”

That wasn’t what he was expecting at all. Marco raised an eyebrow at Shanks. “There must be something on your mind, no matter how trivial,” he tried again, “otherwise we could go join the others and talk there. Just because we’ve cleared the air doesn’t mean you can take me for a fool, Red-Hair.”

“That’s it!” Shanks cried, pointing at Marco around his bottle, “that there! Your refusal to use my name! What’s that about, my good man? I understand why the others show some restraint, but you, I want you to call me Shanks. We’re equals, aren’t we?”

No, they weren’t. Not even slightly. Marco wasn’t sure whether to feel offended by how casually Shanks regarded his own power and status, or to be flattered that he would view Marco as anywhere close to his own level.

“Even Pops calls you Red-Hair,” Marco said evasively, “have you tried asking him to call you by name yet, or am I the only one to be granted such an honor?” He gave Shanks a haughty smirk as the captain frowned at him, clearly having not bet on Marco noticing that.

“Well, no, not yet,” Shanks admitted, “truth be told, since we’re on a roll with being honest with each other, I’m waiting for him to ask me to call him Edward first.”

Marco snickered; all right, that could almost be considered cute.

“You’ll be waiting a long time, then, because he’ll never ask you to,” Marco said, his more sinister side quite enjoying the flicker of hurt that passed over Shanks’ features, finally getting one up on him. “Pops doesn’t ask anyone to call him anything. It has to come from you; you decide what he is to you, and you address him accordingly. In fact, you could walk up to him right now and call him Daddy to his face and he’d probably just laugh and accept it.”

Shanks himself burst into laughter at this, the sound strong and genuine with mirth as he threw his head back. Marco couldn’t help grinning too, appreciating for the first time how _nice _Shanks’ laugh was now that he wasn’t taking it as a direct insult to himself or Pops.

“Maybe I’ll try it when I’m drunk,” Shanks chortled, eyes bright as he calmed, “and we’ll see what happens - if he kicks me off the ship I’m blaming you, by the way. But seriously,” his tone changed, the laughter dying down, replaced by something more frank and leveled, “all jokes aside, I want to hear you say my name, Marco.”

Marco sipped at his beer to avoid replying immediately, eyeing Shanks over the bottle. “Why?” he asked, challenging.

“Why?” Shanks repeated, raising an eyebrow at his drinking companion, “you really have to ask?”

“Sure,” Marco said, starting to thoroughly enjoy this new game they were creating, confident he could win this one with ease, “I wanna know. Is it a matter of pride? Arrogance? Simply enjoying the sound of your own name? Ace already calls you by name; isn’t that enough?”

Shanks regarded him for a long moment, maintaining eye contact as he drained his bottle and set it down with a thunk beside him.

Marco felt that sensation again as Shanks’ eyes narrowed slightly, that instinctive rush of adrenaline telling him with absolute certainty that he was in danger, that Shanks was going to attack and he was vulnerable. It was the same as what he had felt last night. Marco inhaled deep, chest swelling into that feeling, reveling in it and knowing exactly what it meant this time.

“Ace is a nice boy,” Shanks said steadily, running his thumb over his lip to catch the remnants of the beer that clung there, “and I am fond of him. But hearing him say my name has no impact on me. It’s no different to my own crew addressing me. But you…” he laved the tip of his tongue to the pad of his thumb, dragging slow over it, never looking away from Marco’s eyes as he did so; Marco felt his heart begin to speed up in his chest, expectant. “You know you do things to me that none of my men, that Ace, or Whitebeard, could ever achieve.”

Marco grinned, that sly, shitty grin that he reserved for those moments when he was deliberately being difficult. “And what would that include, exactly?” he asked, teasing, annoying on purpose. He wanted to elicit a rise from Shanks if he could, only slightly surprised at himself now for actually wanting to continue where they had left off at breakfast.

And he won.

Shanks crawled over to him, closing the space between them, expression telling that he was intent on catching his prey at long last.

Marco let him.

Shanks leaned over him, supporting himself by bracing his hand alongside Marco’s head on the wood behind him, much like how Marco had done so to Shanks only the night before. But the energy that crackled around them was charged with a threat of a different kind, promising something quite different to Marco’s previous anger.

Hunger. Raw and carnal, staring at him from a scant few inches away.

Marco felt his breath pull almost ragged in his chest as he looked calmly into those dark eyes, lidded with desire and heavy with the same want that Marco was sure was apparent on his own features. His heart beat hard against the inside of his ribs, loud and insistent. His skin tingled with nerves at the promise of something, _something_, happening, but not knowing what.

“And what,” Marco repeated deliberately, delicately, tilting his head slightly to better angle under Shanks, “would that include,” he smiled, showing his teeth, “_exactly?_”

Shanks leaned in carefully, slowly, angling to kiss Marco far more gently than Marco would have expected him to. He inhaled through his nose into the feel of Shanks’ lips to his, feeling as though his very blood was alive with adrenaline, his head swimming light in the feel of that soft skin to his own.

Shanks pulled away after a long moment, searching Marco’s face. “Something like that,” he breathed, his voice trembling ever so slightly, belying how… nervous he was, Marco realised with a start.

Shanks had wanted him for a very, _very_ long time. Years of wanting, of aching, of probably masturbating while moaning Marco’s name, and it was finally happening for him. Fucking around under a table or getting Marco to touch him up in a corridor were, evidently, not comparable to actually kissing the object of his desire.

And Marco could not help but find it all to be really rather endearing.

But that raw hunger was still there, still evident next to the nerves, and it made Marco react, made him _want _Shanks like he had never imagined he could.

Marco pulled Shanks back in by the front of his shirt, licking inside his mouth where he met no resistance whatsoever. Shanks met him wholly, groaning into the immediately deep kiss and closing his eyes to the sensation, slipping wet and tasting of beer over Marco’s tongue. It felt good, _so _good, so intimate, so hot, so strange, because he was kissing _Shanks_, he had Shanks’ tongue in his mouth and he was _enjoying it_—

“Marco,” Shanks groaned against his lips, moving his supporting hand and placing it to Marco’s chest instead, splaying his fingers wide and feeling the tight muscle below his palm, “_Marco_.”

Marco moved to cup Shanks’ jawline, pulling him in again and feeling his cock react to the way Shanks stuttered a moan to his tongue.

This situation was surreal, Marco concluded, groaning appreciatively at the way Shanks stroked over his chest, leaving trails of that heightened tingling sensation wherever his fingers touched. Before today, or possibly last night at a push, he would have never considered doing something like this with the Yonko. And even when he had thought about it earlier, he had not factored in this level of gentle appreciation that Shanks was showing, imagining the act to be as rough and raw as Shanks’ hunger for him told him it would be.

“I want to touch you,” Shanks breathed, his fingers running over Marco’s collar bone once again, feeling the bone through the skin and tracing its length, “I want to map your body and feel every inch of it. Let me learn this last part of you.”

Marco sat up away from the side of the crow’s nest, shrugging off his shirt with no hesitation. His gaze travelled downwards over Shanks’ chest showing through his half-open shirt, down to the very painfully obvious tent in his pants. Marco looked back to Shanks’ face again, gauging his reaction as he reached out to cup him, feeling that heat and weight of his cock to his palm once again, heavy and straining against the material. He couldn’t help but feel enormously flattered that Shanks was so turned on by him so easily.

“No, don’t,” Shanks murmured, his words not matching his actions as he rolled his hips into Marco’s touch, “I don’t need anything. I just want to touch you.”

Marco frowned slightly, seeing that Shanks was serious. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this, never being one to selfishly take it all and not give his partner anything in return… but perhaps, in this case, to not do anything was to give Shanks exactly what he needed.

“How do you want me?” Marco asked.

“On your knees,” Shanks answered too readily, earning a smirk from Marco; he had thought about this, had probably been imagining this very situation right up until the moment Marco arrived.

“Hands and knees, or…?” Marco said, deft hands making quick work of his sash and belt, letting them pool to the floor beside him as he rose from sitting to kneeling in front of Shanks, matching his position.

Shanks shot back a grin, confident and excited. “Maybe later,” he said, taking Marco by the chin and guiding him down into a quick kiss, “when just my hand and lips on your body get too much for you.”

Marco hummed in amusement. “We’ll see, Red-Hair.”

The title was used again deliberately, and Marco stuck his tongue out cheekily at the Yonko in response to the frown he pulled. But then Shanks’ expression relaxed again and his hand returned to Marco’s chest, picking up where it had left off as he pressed in close.

“I would ideally have you on your feet,” Shanks spoke in a low voice, the sound of it rumbling deep in his chest, “but that would risk the men down below seeing us.” He kissed up Marco’s neck, sucking small marks to the skin as he went; Marco shuddered as those calloused fingers pinched at and rolled his left nipple between them, rubbing over the bud more gently as he gasped into the feel of it.

He groaned and rolled his head to the side as Shanks’ ministrations became more confident, more vigorous, and he bit back a whine as he felt teeth scrape experimentally over the tender flesh.

“And by the way,” Shanks said, mouthing the words to just below Marco’s earlobe, thick with warning and heavy with the promise of something that made Marco distinctly nervous, “don’t you _dare _heal.”

And he bit down, _hard_, holding Marco by the shoulder as he gasped sharply and twitched from the pain of it.

Shanks laved his tongue to the bite mark, kissing it softly and lapping up the blood that seeped from the two puncture wounds he’d managed to create.

“I’m going to mark you all over, Marco,” he told the blond, pulling away just enough to look him in the eye, meeting wide-eyed surprise with lust-lidded hunger, “and you’re not going to heal any of them. At least not today.”

Marco laughed, trying hard to keep the shake from the edges of his voice out; he hadn’t expected that, given how gentle Shanks had been in the lead up. He was no stranger to the more passionate of lovers, though, and this would not be the first time he had been instructed not to heal.

It would be the first time he complied, though.

“I didn’t have you pinned as sadistic,” Marco said, “here I was thinking this would be a completely vanilla encounter. You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

Shanks smiled into his collar bone, and when he bit into the skin there Marco didn’t react to the pain this time. “You don’t seem to understand what I meant by learning your body,” Shanks said, sucking bruises along the skin at his lips between his words, “I want to learn _everything_. What you taste like, how you sound, the salt of your sweat, the feel of your skin trembling in anticipation of my lips.”

Shanks’ hand shot up and caught at Marco’s stubbly chin again, pulling him in to meet his lips, again so gentle and passionate as his tongue slipped into Marco’s mouth without hesitation. Marco kissed back, searching, tasting the tang of his own blood and suddenly feeling the measure of his own mortality in the hands of the Yonko.

Reminding him of how dangerous this could potentially get.

Marco could only groan into Shanks’ mouth and cant his hips into the space between them.

Shanks’ lips trailed downwards, pressing firm kisses to Marco’s chin, to the bob of his Adam’s Apple, the dip of his clavicle, to the top of Whitebeard’s mark, retracing the line he had made with his fingers the night before. Marco swallowed hard as Shanks’ teeth pierced his skin again, fighting back the reaction to flare bright and blue and heal the small wound and instead carded the fingers of one hand through that thick red hair. Shanks sucked and kissed at the skin around the wound, groaning at Marco’s touch.

“Shall I tell you what I want to do to you?” Shanks asked conversationally, his hand running low over Marco’s abdomen, pulling a shiver out of the blond at his ghosting touch.

Marco huffed a laugh. “Are you not doing it right now?”

He felt Shanks smile against his skin before he sucked a bruise there, right in the centre of Whitebeard’s mark at his sternum. “You know what I mean,” he said, looking up at Marco momentarily, that almost feral look from last night back on his features. Marco felt his heart skip a beat at that look, at that promise of more to come.

“Then tell me,” he instructed, his pants feeling too tight against his cock, wanting to free it and let Shanks just _take him_ up there in the crow’s nest and be done with this teasing, but there was no way in hell he was going to ask him for it.

“I have two scenarios I’d like to run through with you at the beginning,” Shanks began, fingers spreading around Marco’s navel and stroking along the sensitive skin of his abdomen again, “the first being that you do the prep work yourself. You can probably guess what the second would be.”

He dipped the tip of his middle finger into Marco’s navel, grinning into his chest at the way Marco’s abdominal muscles jumped and his breath hitched at the unexpected touch.

“You would be on your knees, face buried in the sheets of your bed, as you let me watch the way you rub slick over your hole,” Shanks breathed against him, his fingertip swirling inside Marco’s navel. “You’d press in, and gasp, and moan my name to rile me up as you finger yourself open. You’d be so beautiful with your ass in the air and your knees spread wide, all lithe muscle and perfect skin, begging for me to take over already.”

“And would you?” Marco asked, feeling the faintest hint of embarrassment at the way his voice left him ragged.

Shanks shook his head against him and angled to bite just shy of his right nipple, this time leaving the spots of blood to bead and dribble downwards.

“Not until you had three fingers working yourself open,” he said, straightening up again and starting to work on the other side of Marco’s neck now, leaving his navel alone to cup Marco’s erection through his pants. Marco jerked into the touch, a grunt rolling low in his throat at that press to him. “Not until I had you panting and writhing and begging me to just fuck you already.”

Marco laughed, his voice shaking, but he didn’t care, couldn’t even _think _to care anymore. “I’d never beg you for anything.”

He gasped sharp as Shanks bit him with more force than before, the instinct to heal threatening to take over, but Shanks moaned the words, “don’t even think about it,” to the shell of his ear before continuing with his story. “Trust me,” he assured, “you’d be begging at this point. I’d keep you edging yourself for as long as it took, so it would be in your best interests to ask for it sooner rather than later.”

It was just a scenario that Shanks was describing, but Marco still felt that stubborn urge to resist him all the same. So when Shanks’ hand left his cock and cupped his cheek to kiss him, Marco turned his face away at the last second. Shanks only grinned against his cheek before kissing that instead.

“Turn around,” Shanks instructed, and when Marco didn’t move, he added, “and I’ll make you come. OK?”

Whatever his willpower, Marco was still a man with basic needs, and the promise of finally getting his dick touched properly was all the persuasion he needed. He turned as quickly as he could on his knees, the position fast becoming uncomfortable, and vaguely wondered what Shanks would do if he simply demanded they fuck right there and then.

But he kept his mouth shut, exhaling long and low at the feel of Shanks pressing up against his back, ending with a groan as deft fingers unbuttoned and unzipped his pants at long last. He helped Shanks tug his pants and underwear down over his thighs, freeing his erection but keeping his legs together, unable to spread his knees.

“Fuck,” Shanks breathed, his hand coming to rest at Marco’s hipbone, “you’re unbelievable.” He reached forward, bumping his forehead to Marco’s spine between his shoulder blades, and gently took Marco’s erection in hand.

Marco muffled a whine of a moan by biting his lip, his hips jerking forward into that sinfully hot grip. It felt divine, finally being touched after all of the teasing in the last 24 hours, the anticipation and the emotional roller coaster too much for one man to bear, surely.

He reached back behind himself as Shanks’ hand started to move along him, stroking him languidly, testing him, and he gripped Shanks’ hip. Shanks stopped immediately and those teeth came back into play, biting a mark to Marco’s spine that had him flinching.

“Don’t touch me,” Shanks commanded, kissing the mark he had just made, “or I will stop. I told you that I don’t need anything other than to feel you, Marco. So put your hands to the side of the nest and keep them there.”

Marco did as he was told, and Shanks began moving his hand over Marco’s cock again. Marco shuddered, unable to suppress the short, “ah!” that escaped him when Shanks twisted his fist over the head experimentally; Shanks seemed to like this reaction as he repeated the motion but failed to draw more of that sound out of the blond, only succeeding in making him tremble at the intensity of the touch.

“You’re so wound up,” Shanks hissed into Marco’s skin, grinding his hips into the swell of Marco’s ass and eliciting a drawn out groan from behind Marco’s clenched teeth, “you’re already _so _desperate to come. It’s so adorable.”

Marco managed to shudder a laugh. “You’re an idiot,” he told Shanks, and Shanks merely hummed in response.

“Perhaps,” he conceded, “perhaps I am nothing more than an idiot who is grossly obsessed with you. But _ah_, Marco,” he paused to listen to Marco pant, raising his head long enough to see Marco’s drop between his shoulders, his body beginning to come undone from the pressure sliding along his erection, “I wish I could tell you how good you feel. I could never tire of touching you like this, of making you mine.”

Marco agreed; the way Shanks touched him felt too good, made his heart beat so hard it felt like it was going to burst inside him, the way the bite marks covering his neck, chest, and now back still tingling in the evening air as he refused to heal them. He felt Shanks’ desire for him and it corrupted him, made him want to do more with the red-haired captain and allow himself to be eaten alive, to be fucked and held down and submitted to pleasure so intense he couldn’t walk.

“So how does this fantasy of yours continue?” Marco asked, aware that he was panting, aware that his composure was slipping and he was fast hurtling towards the point of no return.

Shanks didn’t answer straight away, licking up the back of Marco’s neck to make him shudder before sucking at the crease between cervical spine and skull. The sensation was strange, had Marco writhing under the touch, immediately followed by a hot, keening moan as Shanks thrust against him and dragged on his dick just _right_. Fuck, he was close.

“You would take me in so perfectly,” Shanks all but moaned, his own breath leaving him in small gasps as he ground his hips against Marco, “I’d watch you stretch wide around me as you took it all, sitting in my lap all beautiful and hot.”

Marco couldn’t help smirking despite himself. “You like the idea of me on top?”

“I like the idea of you coming untouched, no matter the position,” Shanks said unashamedly, trailing kisses along the backs of Marco’s shoulders, the pace of his hand never relenting, “and I like the idea of watching you completely lose yourself to the drag of my cock against your prostate.”

Marco groaned loud, tremulous, feeling in that moment what Shanks described, his mind’s eye playing the scenario out for him. He would ride Shanks hard, pinning his wrist to the headboard and slamming his hips down fiercely, chasing his orgasm as it built, as the pressure inside him grew and swelled until he—

And then he was coming for real, gasping loud, back arching and hips thrusting forward into Shanks’ hold as he spasmed, spilling wet and fast against the side of the crow’s nest.

Shanks worked him through his orgasm, moaning the words, “that’s it Marco, come for me, feels so good,” into his shoulder blade as his vision went white.

Shanks let go of his cock as he squirmed from the beginning of overstimulation, making an uncomfortable noise at the back of his throat. Marco stayed where he was as he willed his heart to calm down, shivering in the afterglow of the intensity of his orgasm.

“That felt…” he began, trailing off uselessly as words seemed to fail him.

The sound of a zipper being tugged down snapped Marco’s attention back to Shanks, looking over his shoulder to see Shanks spitting into his palm and pulling his cock free, coating it with his saliva. Marco felt the pull of fear in an instant as Shanks looked up and caught his eye - he wasn’t prepared, he was going to tear if Shanks tried this, and Shanks looked really fucking _big_—

“I’m not putting it in,” Shanks assured him, breathless, working his fist over himself roughly before lining himself up behind Marco, “Just- just keep your knees pressed together,” he swallowed, he himself losing his composure and firm grip on the entire situation as he slid wet between Marco’s thighs. “You felt so good, I just can’t—” Shanks cut himself off with a groan at the feel of Marco pressing his legs together more firmly.

Marco reached back with one hand and gripped Shanks’ hip again, and this time he wasn’t scolded for it. He fell into Shanks’ fast, desperate pace easily, moving his hips in tandem with him, helping the Yonko chase his own orgasm as he pounded between Marco’s thighs. The head of his cock slipped wet up against Marco’s balls with every thrust, and Marco felt himself starting to react again to the sensation—

And Shanks spilled hot and thick over his thighs, coating him thoroughly, moaning, “_ah, M-Marco_,” into Marco’s back as he released. Marco held his tongue against a speed quip, saving the teasing for another time. It had felt good, and he was impressed Shanks had held back as long as he had.

They stayed as they were for a moment, Shanks still holding Marco by the hip, Marco pushing his hair back off his sweaty forehead and wiping it with the back of his hand. He had done what had been unthinkable just this time yesterday, and he had enjoyed everything about it, including the biting.

Shanks pulled free from between Marco’s thighs with a groan, sitting back down and simply eyeing up Marco’s ass. He grinned, looking thoroughly sated, as Marco looked at him over his shoulder, noticing with a frown what he was staring at. He reached for his blue sash and used it to wipe the mess off his thighs, sighing as the garment got soiled; he’d have to put himself on laundry duty if he had any hope of getting that washed without anyone else discovering it.

“Marco,” Shanks said, interrupting his vigorous scrubbing of Shanks’ seed from himself. Marco looked up, acutely aware that his pants were still halfway down his thighs and he was very much exposed, as Shanks waved him over.

Marco didn’t put up a fight, dropping the sash and pulling his pants and underwear back up, hoping that he’d got everything off him. He scooted over to where Shanks sat, sitting beside him with a sigh, and allowed himself to be pulled immediately into a searing kiss. Marco reciprocated wholly, tugging Shanks in closer by the back of his neck, smiling against him as Shanks groaned at the firm press of lips to his own.

“I’m sorry I got a bit carried away,” Shanks confessed as he pulled back, a small smile on his lips. “You’re perfect beyond anything I could have imagined. I couldn’t control myself. I had this image in my mind of being charming and gentle with you, but…” Shanks shrugged. “That didn’t happen, did it?”

Marco returned the smile. “I’d prefer you to do whatever you want instead of over-think it and ruin the moment, to be honest,” he said, “there’s not a lot you could do to me that would put me off, really.”

Shanks’ smile transformed into a full grin. “Is that a challenge?” he asked, “because it sounds like one.”

Marco chuckled. “Take it as you will,” he said, leaving it open for Shanks to interpret however he wanted, “but I actually prefer rough to sweet. Y’know,” he leaned in closer, dropping his voice despite there being no one in earshot to hear him, “in case there’s a next time.”

Shanks looked at Marco seriously, eyes alive with that now familiar intense desire. “There will be,” he said, reaching for Marco and pulling him in by the shoulder, “I didn’t tell you how the story ends, did I?”

“No,” Marco realised, “I suppose you’ll have to show me instead.”

Shanks grinned against his lips as they kissed again, the implication stirring something deep within them both at the promise of actually sleeping together.

Not tonight, though. No, tonight would become full of the laughter of their nakama, of Marco finally allowing himself to get drunk with the Yonko and his crew and just having a good time. It would be for solidifying their newfound bond, their friendship, or whatever they deemed it to be.

Marco was glad that they had cleared things up, and he was, on some distant plain of realisation, glad to have been wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this is approximately twice as long as chapter 1, yet it feels more rushed to me. Go figure?
> 
> Turns out I can't write without Big Feelings abound and Marco having A Big Think. An epiphany, if you will. Shanks isn't a bad guy, good boy for getting there, Marco.
> 
> I hope y'all aren't majorly disappointed with my garbage, and thank you for reading. There MIGHT™ be a third chapter but, again, we shall see. I want to read it, not write it (aka the problem literally all fic writers face every day).


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